Hello, I only was looking for how people is labeling inventory out there. Now we are labeling PCs whit the username and when we change a user PC we change the PC name to use the same username. With autodiscovery tools and using this method we lost the history for the PC. We are thinking in labeling the PCs using PC000001, PC000002, ... and we wanted to know is this could a good method.

This is a tough concept. In one place I worked at we used to label PC CIs with the hostname of the PC as defined by the desktop team. Of course as soon as the PC was reimaged with a different hostname, a new CI was created (we had discovery tools which were auto-creating CIs). We also encountered issues when PCs where created with the same hostname (after the previous PC had been decomissioned). My suggestion would be to have a unique name (maybe hostname) along with a physical unique identifier (serial number). I the example I gave this would have taken care of MOST of the problems we encountered (there were still times where a PC motherboard was swapped out and the autodiscovered Serial number gets changed - hence changing the discovered Serial number).

We use an extremely simple approach.
All servers are labeled
M<uid> - <uid> is a unique number (no letters)

The idea is that it is not much use to label with anything very informational.
E.g. both the name and DNS-name of the server might change many times during it's life time. That's true for operating systems to.

We choose this simple approach since we need to keep track of the hardware and we wanted it to be simple to remember the name. All the meta information is stored in the CMDB anyway - so that is useless (and subject to change).

If the devices are controlled via the corporate asset tag, then there is the primary ID, the secondary ID is the hostname & IP address (in DHCP world, the IP changes over time but may be in a specific range)_________________John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Traditionally for desktop PCs in most cases the Operating System's configuration is going to be intrinsically linked to the physical device, and these are not going to change very often, however times are changing and I see this as not being true for much longer.

We're already seeing this with high availability virtualisation in the server space - My preference for Virtual servers is to track each OS instance separately from the hardware... The OS will have its own hostname, IP address, DNS entry etc which is separate from the physical hardware on which it operates - in some cases the OS could be operating on any number of physical components over time without any manual handling.

Are we going to start seeing things like this in desktop and laptop PCs? I suspect this will become more prevalent as people start to virtualise their desktop environments. The difficulty now becomes how to manage the OS layer separately from the physical layer and how to track this as CI data or even if its worth doing for desktops - again "it depends".

1 - the physical device - the PC / desktop or laptop either assign to a desk in the office or to a person who works from home or hot desking

2 - the virtual device (the instance and its details)
This device has to have an unique identification. For the finance and accoutnign and human (inhuman?) resources department - john hardesty signs for machine with the asset tag 100 - is the way that the PC device is tracked as an audited item for F&A and HR. John hardesty may get assigned a specific desk in a specific office or be classified as a float / hot desk er/

But from the IT department, this may not be the case. The PC or laptop would be given a machine name, configured for a specific O/S, have a network card - (unique MAC Address per card), get a set of Network Identification (IP address (static or DHCP), Subnet, gateway) details,
{Some details / choice may depend on what is john's work locale type).

Then comes the hard part... how is the IT deparments and its relative parts and tools going to track the PC (physical), the PC (the instance) and the user (john hardesty)

the last part is pretty easy - Active directory/domain/user
the next two depends on the tools used and how they allow for variation

for example

what happens when john hardesty gets replaced by UJ and the same machine is handed over to UJ.

Does the machine details get changed ?

IP, machine name etc ? or merely re-assigned to new person as part of a standard operational process (std change)

How does the cmdb handle john hardesty being upgrade / patched to UJ or removed completely

The config mgmt process not only needs to track the device in question but the 'owner' / primary user of the device especially for front end equipment.

As for virtual servers and devices, I am not a big fan of these_________________John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)